The Alberta College of Art + Design’s (ACAD) Illingworth Kerr Gallery in response to the recent solicitation issued by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Office Customs and Border Protection in the Federal Business Opportunities website is inviting artists to imagine a prototype wall structure to be placed “in the vicinity of the United States border with Mexico” as advertised in the relevant call to vendors available under the category Design-Build Structure (Solicitation Number: 2017-JC-RT-0001). This is an invitation to reflect on the meaning and implications of the above solicitation, and imagine possible alternative scenarios for the future of this wall specifically and, generally, to reflect on border control walls (their functionality or use, as well as their symbolic meaning) at this historical juncture. The intention of the project is to infiltrate the thinking and interrogate the logic and political intentions underpinning this call to vendors, starting from the actual design of the structure, that is to say by challenging the meaning of border control walls from their inception and conception to execution.

The 15th Istanbul Biennial, curated by Elmgreen & Dragset and entitled a good neighbour, contributes to the exhibition with the international billboard project realised through collaborations with multiple cultural institutions worldwide displaying a curated selection of photographs by Lukas Wassmann.
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#Undoingwalls Online Platform

We would now like to extend our invitation to any artist who is interested in submitting their idea for undoing the US-Mexican wall (or any other border wall in existence or to come) and thus contributing to our open archive and dedicated resource platform undoingwalls.net. The collection of new proposals is ongoing and there is no deadline for submitting your contribution. This website is to be considered a “continuous work in progress.” Please take in consideration the following set of questions when submitting your proposal.

Can a “dysfunctional” wall structure be imagined so as to question the original intentions of the Federal Government? Can a “welcoming” and useful wall be created, one that serves the communities that it is meant to separate and proposes an alternative solution to human segregation, when it comes to issues such as immigration and asylum? Can this prototype wall structure become the site where counter-narratives are inscribed and resistance takes place? Can we play the system from within the system but according to its own rules? Can a wall become a conduit as opposed to a divide by rethinking its structure? Can we imagine a wall that is intentionally permeable? Or even a self-destructive wall that conjures against its own intentions?

Gallery Hours

WILD: Fabricating a Frontier

A frontier, unlike a border, represents a zone of relations where it is possible for all those involved to be affected and changed by the encounters. This project examines and complicates frontier narratives by producing and performing alternative vocalizations of what it means to live in contested zones in settler colonial contexts—geographic, political, post-colonial, psychic, interspecies—and retain their narrative complexity. Exploring the affectations of settler colonial romanticism and its persistence in performances of the “Wild West”, this project troubles settler hegemonies and offers alternative practices of wildness.

The project further explores the frontier of “cultural zones” within urban plans by siting itself throughout the city of Calgary during the week of the Calgary Stampede and continuing into the summer months. Exploring interspecies relations, the intersectionality of the frontier, and feminist and Indigenous discourses, WILD: Fabricating a Frontier offers an incisive, humourous and rambunctious counter-telling around the campfire through a multi-venue exhibition project, film screening series, live performances, lectures, and workshops.